Swim meet to open with a splash

Not every big splash will occur at the WFCU Centre’s temporary pool that’s hosting the FINA World Championships in less than a month’s time.

Before the competition begins Dec. 6, Windsor will create an international ripple as the first venue to hold a stand-alone opening ceremony for these 13th World Championships.

“Normally it’s just done literally around or over the pool on the first day of competition,” said Peter Knowles, the event’s executive director. “You’re pretty limited by what you can do around a pool which within 20 minutes is going to be used in competition. Here you’ve got Caesars Windsor, why not use it? Why not do something that’s never been done before?”

Details of the opening ceremonies were revealed at a press conference at Caesars Thursday.

The 5,000-seat Colosseum will host the opening ceremony Dec. 5, featuring Windsor’s own producer/ choreographer Melissa Williams as creative director for the 40-strong cast of performers.

Since a 1,000-plus contingent of athletes along with some 500 team officials will be in the audience, a limited pool of 1,500 tickets are available to the general public. Tickets are $40 each.

Advance ticket sales for the actual competition are going well, Knowles said.

“We’re very pleased with advance sales actually. We’re at six figures in terms of income.”

Total sales to date are 8,200 tickets of which 20 per cent are multisession packages.

From past experience, Knowles said advance sales really go “pretty haywire” in the final two weeks before the event.

“That’s when people realize what’s going on in their community and they see daily pictures of the pool being built.”

Knowles said sales of weekend passes ranging from $80 to $180 are “the most popular.”

Tickets for heats range from $12 to $25 while finals go for $25 to $55. A full-event pass is anywhere from $160 to $360.

“I’m confident we’re going to get full houses,” he said.

The revamped main bowl at the WFCU will hold 4,200 spectators. With almost half the seats reserved for athletes, team officials, VIPs, sponsors and media, there will be 2,500 tickets available to the public for each session.

For the harder to sell morning sessions of heats, FINA organizers have agreed to give a free ticket to each Grade 6 student within all the Essex County school boards.

Logistically, even though the event is just over three weeks away, there are a lot of unknowns.

Entries don’t close until Nov. 22 so organizers won’t have a firm number of who’s coming from approximately 176 countries until after that date.

“Can you imagine trying to arrange accommodation when you don’t know an exact number,” Knowles said.

Currently, he said they’ve booked every hotel in Windsor and a total of 15,000 room nights from Leamington to Detroit.

Installation of the temporary pool will begin hours after the Windsor Spitfires’ OHL game ends there Nov. 18.

“It’s a huge logistical operation,” Knowles said, adding that while the city committed $3 million to hosting the event, FINA has already given local businesses contracts in excess of $4 million.

“This really is going to be a Windsor-produced event,” he said.

Tickets for both the opening ceremony and the competition are available at www.finawindsor2016.com.